The world's leading conquerors

by Wilson Lloyd Bevan

On his recovery he had to deal with a difficult revolt in Sogdiana, again led by Spitamenes, who had figured in the previous uprising and who this time had succeeded in cutting off a detachment of Macedonian troops sent in pursuit of him. It is recounted that the fear of a disaster made such a serious impression on the conqueror that he covered the distance to Samarcand, over 150 miles, in three days. Spitamenes did not wait to try conclusions with the Greeks, but abandoned the siege, drawing off hurriedly in a westward direction, closely pursued by Alexander.

The Persian leader and his Scythian supporters were driven into the wastes across the river Sogda, and Alexander, after ravaging the province of Sogdiana, crossed into western Bactria and passed the winter at Zariaspa, one of the chief cities of that region.

While residing here, the trial of the pretender Bessus was begun. He was condemned to mutilation and to die on the cross at Ecbatana. This type of punishment was alien to Greek feeling and tradition, but it is not necessary to say that Alexander’s apologists have argued the necessity of conforming to the habits of Oriental races when they are to be ruled successfully by outsiders. Alexander himself, as he had never assimilated the best traditions of Greece, seemed ready enough to adopt Oriental customs either to heighten his own dignity in Persia or to impress the Persians that he was the legitimate successor of Darius.

The colloquial axiom, “the longest way round is the shortest way home,” can be applied to the science of government and politics, and it is more than probable that the Hellenization of Asia would have had less of the pinchbeck quality if Alexander had been trained in Sparta rather than in Macedon. In any case, we know that his abandonment of the homely traits characteristic of the relations between a Greek commander and his soldiers made him unpopular, and that, especially, the favor shown by him to the Persians who sided with him was distasteful to the Macedonians. His execution of Parmenio savored of oriental despotism, and during this winter there were open signs of discontent in the camp. (328-27 B.C.)

The winter quarters were changed to Maracanda on account of the restlessness among the natives, and in the relaxation from the strict discipline the soldiers and their leaders spent much of their time in carousing. On one occasion when Alexander and his companions were excited with wine, the king was made indignant at some slighting reference to his military exploits made by his foster-brother Clitus, who appealed to some verses of Euripides which signify that the army does the work and the general reaps the glory. Alexander in his drunken passion hurled a spear at the offender, and Clitus fell dead. The fatal issue of this drunken quarrel was followed by three days’ passionate remorse, and Alexander lay in his tent sleepless and refused food. The fact that he had murdered his intimate friend could not be glossed over even if the army were willing to exculpate their leader, by giving Clitus a post-mortem trial, or by their ascribing the act to the Dioscuri, whose festival was being celebrated at the time.

The excitable temperament of Alexander, unfortunately, cannot always be ascribed to intemperance in drink. He began to be intoxicated with the idea that he was a semi-divine being, and he undertook to act the rôle of an avenging deity, in executing a ruthless sentence of destruction on a small Greek colony in Sogdiana, where dwelt the descendants of the people of Branchidæ, who generations before had betrayed to the Persians the treasures of a temple of Apollo not far from Miletus. The act had never been forgotten, and now Alexander caused all the inhabitants of the place to be massacred, and every vestige of it to be destroyed. An action like this was alien to the spirit of free Greece, and it marks the king’s progress in Oriental despotism. It is all the more a witness to his personal degradation that the Milesian men in his own army, to whom Alexander wished to leave the decision, could not themselves agree on the fate of the Branchidæ, and hence the initiative in the massacre was due to the savage sentiments of their leader.

The pacification of Sogdiana took some time, owing to the rugged nature of the regions in the southern part of the province, but the campaign is chiefly noteworthy because it resulted in the marriage of Alexander with Roxane, the daughter of a native chieftain who had gallantly defended against the Macedonians a mountain fastness called the Sogdian Rock. It had never been noted in the career of the youthful conqueror that he was susceptible to the influence of women. Hence this sudden attachment was as unexpected as it was unpopular in the army. They disliked to have their king ally himself with an alien, and their lack of sympathy was accentuated because Alexander chose to marry his bride after the fashion of her country.

The influence of the Oriental environment was seen also in the introduction of Persian court ceremonial. The king desired to make the custom of obeisance to royalty used by the Persians applicable also to the Greeks. Callisthenes, a nephew of Aristotle, who was attached to the army as official historiographer of the campaign, earned Alexander’s resentment because he sturdily refused to adopt the Persian ceremonial in the king’s presence. He was soon afterwards charged with being involved in a plot to murder Alexander, which originated because of the resentment held against the king by the royal pages, when one of their number, Hermolaus, was flogged and reduced from his position for a breach of etiquette in a boar hunt at which Alexander was present. Callisthenes, apparently because he was an intimate friend of Hermolaus and therefore assumed to be an accomplice in the plot, was hanged.

Three years had now passed since the death of Darius; Alexander had done in the interior of Asia a work which no western conqueror has accomplished since on so large a scale. Even to-day the effective occupation by Russia of the lands once included in the Persian Empire falls short of Alexander’s achievement, because Afghanistan, included in his conquests, is still an autonomous state. It will have been already noticed that much attention had to be given while the Macedonian army was in these Far Eastern provinces, to their protection against the nomad tribes on their frontiers. These operations in Bactria and Sogdiana were a necessary part of the conquests of Persia, since these remote provinces acted as a barrier against the savage tribes of the central Asiatic steppes, who might at any time by joint action overrun the civilization of the regions south of them. The special care shown by Alexander in the construction of settlements in this region is an evidence of his desire to make them centers of civilizing influence by which the restless herdsmen might be trained to orderly methods of life. The experiment failed, but it was a brilliant vision—a vision which might have become a reality if the conqueror had lived the normal span of years.

The beating down of all opposition in the enormously extensive empire which the defeat of Darius had laid at his feet had now been accomplished. If Alexander had been a statesman and nothing else, he would have stayed his hand, because the consolidation of the territory he had overrun was a work demanding the time and the talents of the greatest genius. But Alexander had not the temper of a Roman proconsul, capable and zealous to solve large political problems. He was young enough to be influenced by the spirit of adventure, and unlike Cæsar and Napoleon, had sometimes no deeply laid scheme in his military exploits.